quotes by Jean Webster

"It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit.
It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win."
— Jean Webster (Daddy Long Legs)

"Thank heaven I don't inherit God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I wish Him. He's kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding - and He has a sense of humor."
— Jean Webster

"It isn't the big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones."
— Jean Webster

"The more I study men, the more I realize that they are nothing in the world but boys grown too big to be spankable."
— Jean Webster (Dear Enemy)

"This is your heart.Keep it locked until the chap turns up who has the key."
— Jean Webster (Just Patty)

"The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way."
— Jean Webster (Daddy Long Legs)

"Half of the time I don't know what they're talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language."
— Jean Webster

"I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not."
— Jean Webster

"Her mother was a Rutherford. The family came over in the ark, and were connected by marriage with Henry the VIII. On her father's side they date back further than Adam. On the topmost branches of her family tree there's a superior breed of monkeys with very fine silky hair and extra long tails."
— Jean Webster

"She was by nature a sunny soul"
— Jean Webster (Daddy-Long-Legs)

"I went to bed last night utterly dejected; I thought I was never going to amount to anything, and that you had thrown away your money for nothing. But what do you think? I woke up this morning with a beautiful new plot in my head, and I've been going about all day planning my characters, just as happy as I could be. No one can ever accuse me of being a pessimist! If I had a husband and twelve children swallowed by an earthquake one day, I'd bob up smilingly the next morning and commence to look for another set. ~Jershua Abbott"
— Jean Webster (Daddy-Long-Legs)